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Adamas, Diamond

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ADA MAS.
diamonds intrusted to him by Charles the Bold: the first a deep stone2 (afterwards confounded by all tellers of the story with the famous Sancy) ; the second of a flatter shape, a pre­sent to Sixtus IV.; the third, an irregular crystal, he cut into a triangle, which the Duke had set in a ring representing two clasped hands, the symbol of good faith, and sent to Louis XT., an allusion, though in an acceptable form, to his deficiency in that virtue. The improvement in the beauty of the stones pro­duced by this new fashion was so conspicuous, that Charles rewarded the inventor (according to his descendant Robert de Berquem) with the munificent donation of 3000 ducats. The exact style of cutting thus introduced may yet be seen in numer­ous jewels of the next century. The only patterns known to Kentmann in 1562 are the " Demant-punkt" and the " Demant-tafel." The first, the "Point," is merely a four-sided pyramid, produced by simply polishing 'the faces of the native crystal, and making them exactly true and regular. The second, the " Table." required much more work, the point of the crystal being ground down to a square or oblong plane ; the opposite extremity was likewise reduced to a plane, but of much smaller extent; and the sides were brought to a right angle with each other: this propor­tion being observed, that the width of two sides added together should equal that of the upper plane surface. But if the stone were a Lasque (a flat and thin parallelogram), then the lower part was dispensed with, and the Table consisted of no more than the top with the upper sloping sides, and nothing was left below the setting. De Boot (1609) observes that, though the Points were the most frequently seen (which the view of any collection
Adamas, Diamond Page of 453 Adamas, Diamond
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